What’s up, doc? Port filmmaker tells curious’ story of Mars rover

Thursday

Sep 19, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 19, 2013 at 7:07 PM

Newburyport filmmaker Mark Davis has been making documentaries for more than three decades. The guy’s got a dozen Nova episodes, a bunch of American Experience documentaries and several National Geographic specials under his belt.

J.C. Lockwood

Newburyport filmmaker Mark Davis has been making documentaries for more than three decades. The guy’s got a dozen Nova episodes, a bunch of American Experience documentaries and several National Geographic specials under his belt.

Although he’s explored more earthbound topics, ranging from the origins of the first Americans and the social behavior of dolphins, to a look at the Alaskan pipeline and a profile on John Wesley Powell, a geologist, a teacher and a one-armed veteran who explored the Grand Canyon, Davis has, over the years, become the go-to guy when you’re talking about Mars — our exploration of the Red Planet being the subject matter for several of his films.

He’s pretty good at it, the documentary thing. He’s got the Emmy to prove it. He got the thumbs-up from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences four years ago for "Five Years on Mars," his film about Spirit and Opportunity, the Mars rovers that defied everyone’s expectations — and delivered a mountain of data that will keep scientists busy for years. And he’s been to the dance twice before, getting nominated for "The Curse of T-Rex" in 1996, and "Mars Dead or Alive" in 2005.

But, strangely, he’s never been in the Newburyport Documentary Film Festival in the eight years it’s been around. Nothing personal, mind you. Just never worked out, the filmmaker being away, on location, or locked up in his State Street studio facing crazy production deadlines. Besides, the South End resident has been focused on more commercial work. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that festivals like this skew toward arty, quirky, personal explorations, generally.

"I’m grateful that I’ve been able to make a living at this over the past 30-plus years," says Davis. "And I think I’m about due for something like this, making a personal film. It’s probably time. I admire people who do films like this. It costs a lot of money to makethem and they don’t make a lot of money. And it requires a tremendous sacrifice to do it."

Davis’ "Martian Mega Rover," which will be screened at 4:30 p.m. Sept. 21 at the Firehouse Center for the Performing Arts, tells the story of Curiosity, the Mars rover that hit the surface of the Red Planet last year and whose mission will last at least two years, furthering the discoveries of Spirit and Opportunity, they hope, providing scientists with data about environmental conditions and evidence as to whether or not life has ever existed there. Davis will discuss the film and answer questions after it is screened.

It is one of 14 feature-length films screened this weekend at the Firehouse and the Screening Room. Other films include "Good Ol’ Freda," which tells the story of a shy Liverpudlian teenager who got an invite to work for a local band hoping to make it big. Yeah, the Beatles. And "Secundaria," a film by former Newburyport resident Mary Jane Doherty, which follows one class on its three-year journey through Cuba’s world-famous National Ballet School.

This cut of "Martian Mega Rover" is a little different from the one that aired last year on the National Geographic channel.The film, as originally conceived, was supposed to end with the launch, airing before the so-called "seven minutes of terror," as the landing is known, the payoff for the $2.5-billion, 10-year mission, which took the space vehicle through an unfathomable 354 million miles of space and then had to drop the 2,000-ton Curiosity on the surface, using untested technology — sky crane, hovering jetpacks — to slow a vehicle hurtling through space at13,000 mph to a virtual crawl needed to survive landing.

However, NASA decided to document the landing, making for great television — a real drama in what was a media frenzy, showing people pacing nervously in mission control, waiting through the "seven minutes of terror" to find out if the landing was successful. It was. Davis was there, at the Jet Propulsion Lab, the day of the landing, shooting, re-editing the show for a scary, quick turnaround."It was difficult," he says. "I know newspeople do it all time, but I'm used to fussing with details." He added the entire sequence in one day. "It doesn’t have the polish it would have had," he says, "but it worked."This version ends eight months before the landing, showing those same people watching the spacecraft disappear into the sky over Florida, hoping for the best. Otherwise, it's the same film, the same story, the same emphasis on the struggle to get the thing off the ground.

This, then, is story of the struggle, now largely forgotten, obscured by the mission’s success, to get Curiosity off the ground. It documents the highs and lows of the assembly and testing process, the construction challenges, the frustrating two-year launch delay, with the filmmaker capturing the anxiety, despair and elation of those involved. It is thebackstory to the spectacular, near-flawless mission, as it will be remembered, but which was, in reality, a decade-long struggle getting Curiosity to Mars.

The rover is now safely on the surface of the Red Planet and, according to NASA, using an autonomous – or self-governed – navigation system for the first time, allowing the craft to determine the safest routes to travel without human guidance. The primary goal is to determine if life could have existed on Mars, and to document the environment.

To date, Davis has done five films about Mars. The other ones are "Mars, Dead or Alive" (2004), "Welcome to Mars" (2005), the Emmy-winning "Five Years on Mars" (2008) and "Death of a Mars Rover" in 2011.

"It's hard to get away from Mars," he says. "It's got a hold on me."There’s another film in the works; what it will be is anyone’s guess at this point."You don’t know what’s going to happen," says Davis. "Mars has proven to be a very deceptive place."

'Martian Mega Rover' tells the story of Curiosity, the Mars rover that hit the surface of the Red Planet last year and whose mission will last at least two years. Courtesy photo / Mark Davis

'Mars Mega Rover' is the story of the struggle, now largely forgotten, obscured by the mission’s success, to get Curiosity off the ground. Courtesy photo / Mark Davis